Two Fighters
I like columnists who go out of their way to do their own original reporting. Few do it better than the Los Angeles Times' Steve Lopez, who has a knack for finding compelling stories in places far from the corridors of power. For this column about Olympic boxer Shawn Estrada, he visited the hospital room of Estrada's father, Juan, as his family tries valiantly to find a way for him to watch his son fight for a medal on television:
All day Friday, hospital administrators tried to wire the hospital for cable, so that if he was conscious and well enough, Juan could watch his son's fight live on CNBC just after midnight. When the cable hookup failed, Time Warner technicians spent hours setting up a wireless connection so the family could watch the fight on a laptop.
But as midnight approaches, CNBC is streaming everything online except boxing. How could this happen? After cheering him on for years, Shawn's family is going to miss the biggest fight of his life.
Juan's wife, Sandy, and daughters Emma, Sonia and Ursula begin calling relatives with Plan B. Maybe someone at home could record snippets of the fight on cellphone video and send the images along, so Juan can at least catch a glimpse of his son.
If that doesn't work, maybe someone can hold a cell up to a TV at home and someone can put a cellphone on speaker at the hospital, so Juan can at least hear the announcer call his son's fight.
I don't want to give it away, but the end of this column is tremendously moving. www.latimes.com/news/la-me-lopez17-2008aug17,0,617191.column?track=ntothtml